Truth be told, I'd rather shop than
garden or cook. No tomato will
survive my straggly urban yard. And
sniffing out a crusty baguette beats
kneading myself into a lather any hot
July day. So I have a tendency to
dawdle amid produce aisles and
farm market stalls, gleefully
inefficient, spending precious time
and money buying organic food. After
all, who can dispute the value of a
sun-ripe peach or advice from the
farmer on the best olive oil to drizzle
over his marble-sized tomatoes?

Tony Nelson

Barth Anderson is heading up organic certification for Minneapolis's Wedge Community Co-op

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But the way I see it, my shopaholic
tendencies are easily justifiable.
Researchers are finally publishing
data that confirms what most of us
already know: Organic produce is
more nutritious (with significantly
higher amounts of such nutrients as
vitamin C, calcium, and potassium)
than its conventional counterparts;
overuse of hormones and antibiotics
impairs animals' resistance to
disease and weakens our own
reproductive and immune systems.
Plus, organically grown produce
tastes better because it's nurtured in
rich, chemical-free soil, and,
especially if it's local, because it is
fresh. And organically raised meat
and poultry are tastier because the
animals eat grass and grain and
mature naturally, without hormones
and antibiotics.

And to say conventional food is
cheaper and more accessible is to
ignore its hidden costs: cleaning up
leaky hog-manure lagoons;
protecting monarch butterflies from
genetically modified corn "drift";
combating mad cow disease and
hoof-and-mouth disease, and
conducting food recalls. It's tough to
defend conventional agriculture's
use of cadmium, lead, and arsenic in
fertilizers, and animal feed made
from animals and manure. Farm
chemicals and pesticides taint our
food, run into our drinking water and
rivers, and enter the air we all
breathe. Can we really distinguish
the health of the environment from
that of the individual?

It's not hard to understand the rise in
the number of consumers willing to
track down and pay for organic food.
But as its popularity has grown, it
has become increasingly important
that consumers are given exact
definitions of what the organic label
does and doesn't promise, as well
as who gets to lay claim to it. Come
October, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture will implement a number
of National Organic Standards
(NOS), defining what may and may
not be labeled "Certified Organic."
Ten contentious years in the making,
the new standards create an arena
in which the biodynamic shepherd
and corporate vice president must
play by the same rules. (States may
have their own certification
standards, which must at least
conform to national ones. This
means some states, like California,
will have to toughen their laws.
Minnesota's standards are already
tougher than the new federal rules.)

Every link in our food chain--grower,
producer, processor, wholesaler,
retailer, and restaurant--may opt to
apply for certification. Independent
certification agencies will award the
USDA organic seal based on
inspection and intricate record
keeping; the organization seeking
certification pays the fees.

Far stricter than the initial standards
proposed several years ago, the
guidelines prohibit the use of
genetically modified organisms
(GMOs), ionizing radiation, and
sewage-sludge fertilization. They do
not address health claims, nor do
they govern food additives or growing
methods and are not to be confused
with the term natural, which
has it own USDA definition. The rules
do not ensure flavor, healthfulness,
or quality. Just because it is now
USDA certified doesn't mean all
organic food is the same. Some
farmers and producers are more
careful and conscientious than
others, and the quality of their food
reflects the extra steps they take.

Consumers who are already buying
organic food will not notice much
difference. The real value of the
standards to shoppers like me is
that they create a system through
which I can now track the source of
my food. I will have easy access to
specific information about where a
peach came from, who grew it,
packed it, shipped and received it,
stored and stacked it. I can find out
who raised the cow, the size of the
herd, whether it grazed in
pasturelands or ate grain in a barn,
and where and how it was
slaughtered and ground into the
burgers I'm throwing on my grill.

"Every certified link in the chain must
maintain these detailed documents
and create a secure audit trail," says
Barth Anderson, the organic retail
certification coordinator for the
Wedge Community Co-op in
Minneapolis. The Wedge will be the
first certified organic retailer in the
country and is already a model for
stores across the nation. "Within the
near future, a consumer will be able
to go to a Wedge computer, punch in
the case code listed at the point of
sale, and pull up information about
the product and its source,"
Anderson says. This applies to
anything the Wedge carries that's
labeled organic.

This sounds burdensome, but the
people who will have to implement
these detailed procedures are
thrilled. "The ruling will force us to
streamline information," explains
Everett Meyers, organic produce
buyer for the Twin Cities organic
produce distributor Roots &
Fruits. "And this will help us analyze
what's going on, how we can do it
better."